Cricket – The Philadelphia Story … The Australians of 1896
Martin Chandler |Published: 2025
Pages: 170
Author: Smith, Steve
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3 stars
With this title Steve Smith’s roulette wheel style telling of the story of cricket in Philadelphia comes to a stop in 1896 and a visit of an Australian side for a month long visit. The cricketing side of the tour consisted of three First Class fixtures against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia and three other matches, a 12 a side fixture against New Jersey and then two games against odds, 15 of Chicago and then, before departing home from the West Coast, 18 of California.
Many teams visited Philadelphia in Victorian and Edwardian times and Steve Smith’s project is to tell us about all of them. Most were from England and the teams varied in strength. None were weak however, containing a sprinkling of Test cricketers and almost all of their teammates were First Class cricketers. That said none were anything like being representative of the full strength of English cricket.
Not so with the Australians who visited in 1878, 1893 and 1896. In each case the tourists were visiting North America at the end of their tours of England and, particularly the latter two touring parties, were teams that, albeit they had just lost the series in England, were Australia’s best eleven.
In 1878 the Philadelpians achieved a highly creditable draw against Australia, and in 1893 they went one better and in one of the two First Class matches beat their visitors by an innings to produce what at that stage was the greatest shock the world game had seen.
In 1896 the Australian side was, on paper, considered by most to be stronger than their predecessors of three years previously. They had fine batsmen like Clem Hill, Syd Gregory and Joe Darling, bowlers like Ernie Jones and Hugh Trumble as well as the great all-rounder George Giffen.
Normal service appeared to have resumed as the Australians won the first two matches against the Philadelphians with something to spare. Did they relax after that? It must be possible as in the third match the Gentlemen of Philadelphia turned the tables and it was them who came out on top at a canter, winning by an innings and 60 runs.
As to the book itself that is in the usual style, being a mixture of brief biographies of many of those involved together with detailed accounts of all the matches. There are also scorecards of the games, some photographs and in addition some fascinating period advertisements are reproduced in what is another book in Steve Smith’s series that is well worth reading.
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